July 10th, 2008

Robert and I were up and at 'em early this morning, getting to the Farmers' Market Restaurant on a rare (first time ever, actually) weekday visit for breakfast. We each had their killer, killer French Toast. I had an egg over easy on the side with mine, and Robert had a side order of bacon—which he generously shared, as he always does.

I got home to log in to work by 9:00 and start the day with no one the wiser.

Late in the afternoon, I created a little Powerpoint slide presentation outlining my idea for Startup Weekend, which starts tomorrow at 6:00PM. It has the potential to be an intense, immersive experience—if the proposed schedule is any indication at all:

(Times are approximate. We’ll be playing it by ear.)

Friday:6:00-7:00pm - Meet and socialize.7:00-7:15pm - Introduce the idea of startup weekend. Present guiding principles.7:15-7:45pm - 1 minute introductions. Who you are, what kind of work do you want to do this weekend?7:45-8:30pm - 1 minute pitches of ideas. 1 minute follow-up for questions.8:30-8:45pm - VC John Glushkin of Intersouth Partners talks about how to evaluate an idea for a startup.8:45-9:15pm - Narrow down to small # of ideas. Everyone votes on top 3 ideas.9:15-9:30pm - Break into groups of 3-10 people to start companies.9:30 — Break. If you want to go home, go for it. Otherwise, stick around and start working.

Saturday:9am - Breakfast. Start working.12pm - Lunch. Keep working.6:30-7:00pm - Quick status update from each group.7:00-8:00pm - Dinner. Open mic hour (we’ll have music EQ set up with a guitar and keyboard for anyone to go cover a song).8-10pm - Keep working.10pm — Break. Go home if you want. The hardcore will keep working.

From 6:00-8:00, I attended the STC-Carolina chapter's annual Vision Day, where the direction is set for this local, professional chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. As always, it was great to spend some time with one of my favorite people on the planet, Sarah Egan Warren.

At the end of the meeting, at around 8PM, I headed into IBM, where my mouth dropped almost to the floor, or so it seemed, when I unlocked our office door to find my officemate's side of the office entirely empty. Was it something I said???

I got to the gym at about 9:45 for a cardio-only workout. The gym was actually surprisingly attended considering it was 10:00 at night. I waffled between doing 30 and 40 minutes on the elliptical, ended up setting the timer to 40 minutes just in case, but stopped at 30 minutes, since it was so late and I still had to eat dinner tonight. Today's workout stats:

Exercise Type

Minute Duration

Calories Burned

Cardio (Elliptical)

30

630

After a quick shower there, I stopped at the Harris Teeter next door for some coffee and fat-free croutons. At home, I had a most anticipated and delicious salad: lettuce, green onions, ham, egg, cheese, cucumbers, pineapple, raisins, and some croutons. Yum. Yum. Yum!